Chapter 4

We reached the seventh hole of the Daytona Beach qualifying course on opening day and Tess had shot six straight pars. Nothing particularly wrong with that, but she was visibly frustrated. She'd hit some nice drives, but her approach shots had been unspectacular, and her putting was frighteningly ordinary. She'd had only one true birdie opportunity -- a five-footer on the fourth hole -- and she'd missed it badly.

There was a massive number of qualifiers swarming the course -- and no leaderboard. It was impossible to know how a competitor was performing, relative to the rest of the field. Tess' impression, however, was that she wasn't performing particularly well.

I had to agree.

On the Par 3 seventh, she hit long and we knew -- even Kim knew from the previous day's practice round -- that there was deep shit back there past the flagstick. It was almost too much, I knew, to hope for a decent up-and-down from that morass, and the tiny stream that flowed behind the green could spell real trouble.

When we found Tess' ball, my heart fell, because it was smack in the water and nearly unplayable. I expected Tess to cuss a blue streak when she saw it, but she surprised me and just started laughing. She looked at Kim and said, "Here's where I start to play this goddamned tournament!"

Tess straddled the little stream and threw up an enormous amount of water in the process of poking the ball out of the rivulet and onto the green. Her shot didn't get her close to the hole -- she was a good 40 feet past -- but it was an extremely respectable recovery, considering where she'd been. I figured she could get down in two for a bogey four. Not bad, considering that stray tee shot.

Well, she dropped the 40-footer for par. It was her seventh consecutive par. But this one felt like an eagle, and Tess' smile could have lit up the course at midnight.

"Nice!" I said. I didn't overflow with enthusiasm. I didn't gush. Tess didn't like gush. But it was a very nice "nice."

She birdied four of the next six holes and took two more pars on the others. On the long par 5 fourteenth, she reached the green in two and sunk a 15-footer for an eagle three. At that point, she was an amazing six under for the round with more inviting birdie opportunities ahead.

Well, the par disease came back. In fact, she came close to a bogey on the 17^th before lucking one in from off the green.

But she was sky high. Why not? She'd shot a 66 on opening day.

The massive number of players on the course made post-round practice seem impracticable. It was already late, and Tess' adrenaline rush was bringing her down, anyway. Not even Kim -- more fanatical about practice than V.J. Singh -- wanted Tess to swing another club. "Let's go home!" she said.

"Home" of course, just meant the RV Park. We were in an (expensive) beachside park south of the city, and although the beach consisted of only four or five feet of weedy looking sand, it was a pretty nice spot to park an RV, all the same. Two hours after the round, we were sprawled in beach chairs outside the vehicle, each of us with a tall cold one in hand.

"Sixty-fucking-six!" I announced. "Six under for the round. Fucka-fucka-fucka!"

"Hey, it's only 18 holes," Tess said. This was our routine. If she had shot a 76, I'd have been telling her that there were still 54 holes to go, and not to panic. But she had shot a 66. You'd think my job would be to hold her down, right? Make sure she didn't get too high on success? Make certain she'd be hungry again tomorrow?

But I knew Tess. The way to play it, I knew, was to go ahead and go crazy! If I went nutso about the 66, she'd be the one to bring me back down, and, in the process, keep control on her own emotions.

Kim -- nobody's fool -- just stayed quiet and watched the interplay.

"You gotta do a two-over tomorrow," I teased. "That'll put you at four under for the two rounds -- right on your goal of two-under for each round."

"OK, OK, I already told you that you were right about too much goal-setting," Tess said. "Tomorrow will take care of itself... But if I do go two-over tomorrow, man, I'm cutting you off until New Years!"

"Guess I better get some tonight, then," I said, grinning. "While the getting's good."

"Just try to get some sleep, somewhere in there," Kim said.

I suggested we find a nice restaurant and go out again, but Tess declared it a Lean Cuisine night, so we all just got comfortable and dined on Sesame Chicken -- five of them, among the three of us.

We walked along the "beach" for a couple of miles, dipping our feet in the surf and side-stepping the debris and dead sea life as we went. There were practically no sea shells to be had (Kim complained bitterly about that) and Tess explained that Western Florida -- the Gulf Coast -- was far, far better than the Atlantic for shelling. This was just raw ocean out here -- very few barrier islands and nothing between us and West Africa except salty water.

"The shellfish do better in calmer waters," I pronounced. Experience told me this was true, although I had no idea whether it was universally true, or just something I'd noticed in my limited travels. All I really knew was that the islands off Ft. Meyers, on the Gulf side of Florida, were lousy with shells, and that I'd never seen anything like it, anywhere on the Atlantic Coast from Maine to Florida.

Kim would enjoy it over on Sanibel, or Captiva Island.

By 10 p.m., we were all drunk on fresh air and gin and tonics, and were off to bed.

It turned out that only one woman, out of the enormous field at Daytona, had bested Tess' 66 on opening day. Tess' second-day round was a roller coaster ride. She started out with two birds on the first five holes, but gave them both back before the turn. She was frustrated and a little concerned, but Kim calmed her down during one of the many lengthy waiting periods between shots, and when we stood on the 18^th tee, Tess was back to two under for the round, and eight under for the first two days.

Eighteen was a tough finishing hole, a par four. I knew that another par would be enough to send Tess home happy. She was feeling aggressive, however, and decided she was going to try to reach the green with her drive.

Bad mistake.

She missed badly to the right into the trees, and when we got there, one of the trees was blocking her approach. It was a big tree and a complete block. There wasn't any way to go over, under or through.

She ended up feeling lucky to have bogeyed 18 and shooting a 71 -- one under for the round.

She fussed and fumed all the way back to the RV park, but by the time we got there, she was fine.

"Seven under is definitely on-course for the tourney," I pointed out. We would check the computer much later that evening, and find that Tess had the third-best two-day score among qualifiers.

"I wish I had more opportunity to practice after the rounds," she complained. "That place is like an asylum!"

"Want to try another course? A driving range, maybe?" I suggested.

"Gets dark too early now," she said. "Anyway, commercial driving ranges weird me out. I'd much rather piddle around at a club's own range."

"You're doing the right thing, just coming back here to relax," Kim said. Coming from Kim, that sounded more comforting than it would have, coming from somebody like -- say -- me. When I suggested cutting after-round practice sessions, there was always the suspicion that I was merely hoping to get laid earlier in the evening.

When Kim the Fanatic said it made sense to play hooky from practice, it sounded like the Voice of Reason.

She wasn't just woofing, though. I think Kim really believed what she was saying. Seventy-two holes in four days was, maybe, practice enough. Getting away from that over-stressed golf course might be worth more than trying to get a few kinks out of your swing.

We did a re-run of the previous evening's gin-by-the-ocean routine, and everybody went to bed happy.

Sometime in the wee hours, Tess woke me up in the most pleasant way possible. Coming out of a deep sleep, dreaming of someone's warm mouth wrapped around your cock, is always an exceedingly pleasant sensation. Some of my very best wet dreams followed that scenario.